Welcome to the International Kiteboarding Association

Our Vision

To grow, evolve and promote the sport of kiteboarding across the globe and across all disciplines.

For more information please also visit our topic specific websites:

Formula Kite

The Formula Kite class is a high performance hydrofoiling class using regulated series registered production equipment freely available.

For Regional Games and a possible inclusion in the Olympic Games, one hydrofoil model and one kite model will be selected for a plain level playing field and to avoid an arms race.

KiteFoil GoldCup

The KiteFoil class is a full development class with minimal equipment limitation, allowing brands to test the latest equipment on the market.

The GoldCup tour is the sports premium event series with events all around the world and a strong focus on media production and prize money level.

Slalom

Slalom on TT:R (TwinTip boards) has been selected as the discipline and equipment for the Youth Olympic Games 2018 in Buenos Aires.

The focus of this high-octane discipline is on equipment handling and technique and includes reaching starts, reaching courses, and obstacels to jump.

Expression

The Expression Disciplines currently include Freestyle, Big Air, Wave Riding, Strapless Freestyle and Park. Competition is judged on difficulty and execution rather than "first past the post".

World Sailing, IKA and GKA have agreed to share the responsibilities for the Expression Disciplines with the Open World Titles awarded through professional tours.

Youth Olympics

Kiteboarding has been included in the 2018 Youth Olympic Games with a boardercross event on IKA TwinTip:Racing equipment, for boys and girls born between 2000 and 2003.

Have a look here to learn more about equipment limitations, formats and qualification opportunities.

Olympic and Regional Games

The IKA continues to campaign for an inclusion of kiteboarding in the 2020 Tokyo Games and several Regional Games on One Design Kitefoiling Equipment.

The Formula Kite class is the only afforadable solution for emerging and developing nations to compete in high performance classes and ticks all boxes of the IOC requirements, especially for youth and media appeal.

This new series is intended to bring you more information about the most asked for topics around the new kiteboarding era. We are starting with the one of the biggest interest at the moment: the unified world ranking. While the details are still under development, we want to give you a brief overview what will come up in the near future.

First of all, to make an end with all the guessing around the world: there is no exclusivity to anyone or anything to run a world tour, world cup, world championship or whatsoever. This means, neither the KPWT through the broad agreement we have with them, nor anybody else has an "exclusive tour". In contrary, all events that will be sanctioned in the future will count towards the unified ranking, and in the expression disciplines (freestyle and wave) the winner of the world ranking is crowned the world champion.

Sanctioned events are graded depending on their importance and - of course - their price money. This goes from international open events (for which every nation can apply) over grand prix events, continental championships, up to grand slams and super grand slams. In racing and speed, an additional one-off world championship event will be held to determine the world champion.

This brings us to the point system. Of course, an international open event will give you less points than a super grand slam (which are the events that are know nowadays as KPWT or PKRA worldcups). Every rider brings his best results into the world ranking, with a maximum of 10 events throughout the year, and a discard system. An example: if there are 8 events sailed in that discipline, the best 6 count. If there are 12 events sailed in that discipline, 9 count. From 13 events onwards, the best 10 count.

All results throughout the year (up to the maximum number depending on the number of events) are counted together in each discipline. The one with the most points wins the world ranking.

Now to the next step: all the rankings are "rolling systems". The idea behind is to determine the strength of every sailor at any time of the year. What does this mean in real life ? We are not starting with 0 points for everybody at the beginning of each year. In contrary, every sailors points from the last 12 month will be counted together, and thus we have a realistic picture of every sailors abilities and status at every day of the season. What for, you might ask... first of all, to have a reliable seeding system throughout the season ! For events with limitied starting places, the starting eligibility will be given on the current world ranking status. This ensures fair entry chances for every sailor.

OK... you might say, but now we start with 0 points ? No, for the first season under IKA jurisdiction, we are going to create a "virtual seeding", taking into account the KPWT and PKRA results from the 2008 season. With some calculation, this should give us a realistic picture of the riders abilities.

What about the Overall Title. This is the last part we want to cover in this edition. The Overall World Title will be determined by each riders best result from each category. In 2009, the major disciplines will be freestyle and wave from the expression category, course racing and slalom from the racing category, and offshore speed from the speed category. Now, every rider can choose his best ranking from each category, and the points are added together. This gives a true picture of the most universal and thus best kiteboarder in the world. Understand ? Here is an example:

Rider B wins because he has a higher total point sum, even so he did not do all 3 categories. Why not taking the rankings from the single disciplines but the points ? To ensure, that the Overall World Title also reflects the importance of the individual disciplines. The more events are held in a single discipline, the more points you can score and obviously the more important this specific discipline is.

We are sure that there are much more questions to come up - and we might come back to this topic later on with more explanations and examples.

We will also start up a "FAQ" section on the website to include all these topics and explanations for future reference.